Joe and I flew home for our Pennsylvania baby shower in Pittsburgh.  It was nice to be back in 'chilly' PA, with a seasonably comfortable 50 degrees- a nice change from the Texas heat.  I swear that on Saturday morning there was some freezing rain when we left for the Strip District- which is almost like snow!

Here are some pictures of Joe and I opening pictures at the shower, plus me and some of the Saccos.  Unfortunately, I have no pictures with the Rutkowski's on my camera, so we'll have to get some from Joe's mom at some point.

-The cute diaper cake my mom made

-Lisa, Madeline and the belly

-Me and my mom

-Me and Grandma

-Grandma, me & my dad

-Me, my cousin Brooke, my dad, Grandma & Aunt Patty

We had a busy couple weeks between Easter and posting this as we have now moved from our 1 bedroom apartment (my favorite apartment, ever!) to a 2 bedroom apartment in the same building.  It's been a daunting task for Joe as I have been 'worthless' due to my 'condition' and he's been doing the bulk of the moving.  "Professional movers" came during the week and moved all of the furniture and thankfully, we were able to borrow a cart from Joe's lab that we would fill up with dishes, pots and pans, etc and then Joe would push down the loooooooooog (2.5 minute walk-long) hallway that sloped up on the way to the new apartment, of course. I moved what I could in our suitcases and I did move all of my clothes and shoes with the help of our friend Suzie- I trusted her to be gentle with all of my beautiful clothes that no longer fit.  I eyed them longingly as it will be months before I can wear them again.

It has also been weird moving into an apartment that looks 70% the same as the one we left. It's much more difficult for my brain to adjust to the slight changes than the big changes- yes, I'm still a geeky neuroscientist at heart. The second bedroom is a disaster area as everything got dumped in there so hopefully it will be ready for baby/my mom staying with us by the end of June, especially since we won't have much time over the next few weeks with the trip to PA taking up one whole weekend and the all-day baby preparedness class at Baylor Hospital.

 -The disaster of the spare room after moving

 

Once the apartment's more 'settled' I'll post more pictures. The baby's turning into a little monster and it moves around a lot! -but at least it's on a relative schedule of movement, I could set my watch to it's movements right now. The baby usually wakes me up around 4am- it is totally weird to be kicked awake from the inside out- and it's so scary when it doesn't wake me up and then you panic that maybe something's wrong, but it always starts moving again once I get up and about when I get out of bed around 6-6:30am. Sleeping's been difficult, but I think that also has to do with the stress of moving, getting ready for the trip to Pittsburgh and some crap at work.  Very hopeful that I'll be able to sleep better in a few weeks- the sleeping issues seem to come in waves.

And lastly, here are some more pictures from around our neighborhood, the Design District. And no, I didn't stuff a basketball up my dress, even though that's what it looks like!

Today, Jill and I drove down to Ennis, TX to drive the Bluebonnet trails. I had seen photos of these beautiful meadows full of bluebonnets somewhere in Texas, and now I know where they most likely were from. It was crazy that these farms and yards in Ennis are a sea of blue (with a pop of red from the indian paintbrushes) for acres upon acres. Thankfully, we did not see any snakes, but I did get chewed up by some fire ants and got all itchy after climbing into the bluebonnets for some of the shots. One of the locations on the Ennis tourism map was 'the big blue house'. We drove up to what we thought was the big blue house, set way off the road and parked in the front of the driveway to take some pictures. Of course, the tourism site also says not to trespass into people's yards and we weren't exactly sure if we were at the correct big blue house. We popped out of the car to take some pictures and of course, a pickup truck comes barreling down the long driveway. As Jill and I prepare to get an earful from the owner, we pop up from the patches of bluebonnets in the yard and walk over to the driveway as the dusty brown pickup pulls up with a 60+ year old man behind the wheel, passenger window rolled down and a rifle perched between him and the passenger seat.

man in truck: "You girls here to see some bluebonnets?"
me: "Yes, we are. Hi, I'm Carolyn." Eagerly eying up the rifle, I hope my introduction will at least increase the amount of time we have to dash to the car and delay getting shot at with his rifle.
man in truck: "Well, good thing, you found the bluebonnet man!"

Turns out, he has a nice scenic patch of bluebonnets behind the house near a pond and a lake that he lets people walk around for photos. Was a bit strange, but ended up being a nice place to take pictures without the throngs of tourists in the public areas. He even pointed out a spot along the road where we could find some white bluebonnets.

Below are the weekly pregnancy pictures. I'll need more time to process the flower photos (as I still haven't finished processing the ones from the arboretum), so I'll post those in the next few weeks.

For the last day of Joe's beard, and March, we went around the UTSW campus with Annabel and her awesome (and heavy) portrait lens for some couple pregnancy pictures. Some fun ones are below and the rest, and more normal looking photos, are on flickr- just click this link to the flicker set.

Happy Birthday, to me! My last birthday as a non-parental unit. Joe and I spent a nice dinner at Il Cane Rosso after work and then hung out at home because we were going to be busy the rest of the week- I had signed up for a photography class at the Arboretum that Tuesday and Thursday as a birthday present to myself. The weekend before my birthday, we spent Saturday driving to and from Tyler so that I could pick out my birthday present at an antique shop and on Sunday we went to the Grape for brunch and then signed our lease for our new two bedroom apartment (same building, but a top floor apartment- yeah, no pounders above us anymore!), and then Jill came over to watch the 2-hour season premiere of Mad Men.

Here's another picture from after dinner on my birthday.....

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

For the 4th year in a row, we made it down to the Greenville Avenue St. Patrick's Day Block Party for some shenanigans and people watching. This year, I even got to see boobies of girls flashing people on a balcony for beads..... who knows what will be in store for next year!

-Joe drinking green beer at the Libertine before heading to the block party.

-Feeling huge.

-Always something fun to spy at the block party. Guess she couldn't get a real date?
P.S. The crazy tall bike still exists.... it appears that impending fatherhood prevented Joe from riding it for a 3rd year in a row....

It rained all day on Saturday, but Sunday afternoon turned out to be lovely so Joe and I went on a walk around our neighborhood to take some pictures of my growing belly in the beautiful weather and blooming trees and flowers.




We stopped into the Moth for a break and asked one of the waiters to take a picture of us together.... here's Joe with a beard!

First stranger asks to touch my belly.....

We were at the grocery store and we bought 3 cartons of ice cream on sale- might as well buy it on sale as I will definitely eat it over the next 4 months! Of course, Joe decides to tell the checkout clerk and bagger at Kroger that I'm pregnant- hence the 3 cartons of ice cream. The bagger chick, like everyone else, says congratulations, but then asks to touch my belly. Seriously lady? I told her no, she couldn't and then she just looked dumbfounded, like I told her the easter bunny wasn't real. Oh well.

Joe said, "Next time a stranger asks, ask them if you can touch their butt!"

Look who's got a belly!

Joe and I went to the Arboretum to enjoy the beautiful afternoon and take some pictures of me and my growing belly. It's been about a month that my normal pants are not fitting whatsoever. It's also been about the same amount of time that the kicking/punching has been relatively consistant as well. Right before bed time is when it's the most active and feels like it's about to jump out of my stomach like a fish jumping out of a bowl.

Some more pictures from the Arboretum shoot:

It's a.......surprise!!!

Today was the 20 week ultrasound and Joe and I decided that we want to keep the gender a surprise. For some reason, we've ended up with the ugliest ultrasound photos (I refuse to post the one from 13 weeks-it looks like an alien). Nobody's given us that cute profile picture that everybody has up on their facebook posts. oh well. As long as I don't have any complications, this will be the last ultrasound, so we've got what we've got. From the measurements, the doctor conducting the ultrasound moved the due date up to June 27th....let the baby poll begin!

-here is fetus RutSac looking at you!! (I think....)

New car!!

What's more adult than purchasing your first brand new car? winning it on the Price is Right, of course, but since that's not going to happen without a trip to Burbank, CA, we bought our own! Joe really wanted to get a Mazda 3, which looked like a good idea when we were visiting our friend Pierre in Quebec City over the summer. He had a baby and fit a car seat in it, so we thought we'd be good with it, too. Upon second glance, the 'trunk' look microscopic. The Kia wasn't much better, so we settled on the Hyundai Elantra Touring... the sister car to the 2012 Car of the Year! It's great! it's not much bigger than the Prizm, but it has more head room, a bigger back seat and properly functioning shocks. And it's quiet.... sooooo quiet compared to the rattlings of the Prizm.

-At the dealership with our new car.

The last Christmas we'll ever have alone....

....that sounds so cryptic, but it's true!

-Our last Christmas alone together.

-Still no baby belly.